UT will award its ninth and tenth honorary degrees to social activist Marian Wright Edelman and actress Dale Dickey. Edelman will receive an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters and speak at the College of Communication and Information commencement. Dickey will receive an Honorary Master of Fine Arts in acting during a campus visit next year.

Celebrate the contributions made by UT’s female students, staff and faculty by participating in Women’s History Month events. The Commission for Women is hosting Women in Art: Gallery Showing and Celebration, a showcase of UT women artists and Women in STEM: Arachnology at UT lecture. The Women’s Empowerment Summit is Saturday, March 7. A lecture about career journeys of successful women leaders given by feminist psychologist Ruth Fassinger is Monday, March 23.

Each month in 2015, Make Orange Green will roll out a set of themed desktop and smartphone wallpapers for you to download and enjoy. Looking ahead to spring showers, this month’s focus is on water. Conserving water and learning how to prevent water pollution are two of the best things we can do to preserve this precious and dwindling resource.

Students from UT and other area schools have been working with the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture to uncover the history of African American soldiers by helping to transcribe a Civil War-era handwritten text.

UT’s School of Journalism and Electronic Media will hold its inaugural Ida B. & Beyond Conference on Thursday, March 26. The conference begins at 9:30 a.m. in UT’s Black Cultural Center, 1800 Melrose Avenue. It is open to the university community and the public.

Dwight L. Teeter Jr., 80, a journalism educator for more than four decades, an expert and author on media law and journalism history, and a mentor to countless graduation students, died February 27 in Knoxville following a long illness. Arrangements for a celebration of life will be announced soon.

A new paper authored by UT professor suggests that in order to cope, conservation organizations need to adapt like the organisms they seek to protect. The paper, published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, argues that conservation organizations need to be bolder in their adaptation efforts given the rate and extent of the ecological changes that are coming.